From Cefalu to Sacramento Part 4: Wending the Way to Sacramento

In the previous installment, we discussed the events that followed the death of Karl Germer, mentioning the ongoing work of Phyllis Seckler as she picked up and continued the administration of the A.'.A.'.. She went through a lot over the years, developing what eventually became the International College of Thelema and the Temple of the Silver Star in service to the A.'.A.'..

She worked to create resources for people looking into the subjects of Thelema and Crowley through the publication of In the Continuum, a bi-annual journal that was available from 1973-1996. She worked to document her own Superior's history, writing a series of articles on the life of Jane Wolfe that was eventually expanded and published as Jane Wolfe: Her life with Aleister Crowley, Parts 1 and 2. Copies of Part 1 are still available from Conjoined Creation, and I hope to see a combined volume re-published one day.

As we mentioned in the previous post, throughout her life Seckler continued to accept students in the formula of the original blueprint Crowley published in the Blue Equinox. In 1993, Seckler was contacted by David Shoemaker, who soon began his work in the A.'.A.'. under her personal tutelage, and began his initiations into the Mysteries of the O.T.O..

 He and Phyllis Seckler became more than just student and teacher over the years. Hearing his stories about their time together, it quickly becomes obvious that they were friends and compatriots in the pursuit of the Work. She found in him the person she felt most comfortable leaving the legacy to which she had devoted her entire life. When she passed, he was named her de facto spiritual heir, receiving her personal library, and the documents of her history in the Orders. He followed her as Body Master of 418 Lodge in Sacramento, and currently leads the International College of Thelema and the Temple of the Silver Star, which were established by explicit warrant from Seckler.

It's really not my place to speak about his accomplishments within the A.'.A.'.. He is more than capable of speaking publicly about himself, should he so choose, and he's made a great deal of his personal Work available publicly available through the Living Thelema podcasts, now fully cataloged at livingthelema.com, and through the book of the same name published in 2013. Speaking to him in person, seeing his presence at events, and receiving instruction in the techniques of Magick he shares speaks volumes about his experience and demeanor.

But I'd like to share my favorite anecdote about David Shoemaker, and it's not one that comes from him, or anything he's ever made available publicly. It comes from conversations I had with an old friend at a tiny and remote whiskey bar somewhere within the borders of the Chesapeake Bay. It was before I joined the A.'.A.'. myself, and it was one of the things that made my decision easier.

My friend and I met long after smoking was outlawed in all public places, but the smoke of thousands of imported cigars had long since permeated the grain of the wood of the bar as we discussed the route of the A.'.A.'. leadership as it led to David Shoemaker.

"David's legit, perhaps the only one who can actually provide an unassailable paper trail back to Crowley, if that matters to you," my friend said. "While that gets him paper respect, there's a lot more to it than that. His whole life in Thelema demonstrates the Grades."

You can bet this got my attention.

My friend went on to tell me All About What Happened to the A.'.A.'.^TM. He just sat there, sipping his Coca-Cola (he didn't drink, even though there were scotches worth more than he made in a month available to him if he would just place the order for once in his life) and talking. He told me of Germer, and of Motta, and Breeze, and Gunther, of Grady McMurtry, and his own teacher's teacher, and he told me of Jane Wolfe, Phyllis Seckler, the Eshelman period, and then, finally, we spoke of David Shoemaker.

He told me about how David had showed up in the early 1990s, and fell right into the current 93, rapidly moving up through the degrees of the O.T.O. and the Grades of A.'.A.'. alike. He spoke of the contributions to the College of Thelema by the key players, the end results, and the eventual change in focus that happened sometime before Phyllis passed away. He told me that she had left her full library and archives to David, and that he was her primary spiritual heir.

And then he spoke of the disappearing David. "It's like he went silent after she died. Nothing on the national O.T.O. lists to speak of, nothing international, of course, and during this period, very little came out of the West Coast with his fingerprints on it."

But then... something happened.

"Something settled in him, and then everything changed," as it was put to me.

My speculations revolve around the facts. Sometime between 2004 and 2010, David Shoemaker passed through some levels of initiation and experiential understanding that shifted his focus from a passive recipient of the teachings to an active teacher of our Mysteries. He returned to public life, broadcasting Living Thelema, and taking the actions that eventually led to the formation of the International College of Thelema, and its initiatory body, the Temple of the Silver Star.

"No one knows what happened, for sure, but it's pretty obvious," said my friend. "You don't do this stuff until you hit ..." and I won't say what Grade he was referencing, but basically, everyone who cares can figure it out. It's basic math, though, and his actions and his experiences map directly onto the path of initiation and what you'd expect someone to do when they hit certain Grades of the Order.

So that about wraps it up. It was a long and winding road that led from Cefalu to Sacramento. Yet, in my mind, it's all pretty straightforward:

• Crowley to Germer
• Germer to Seckler
• Seckler to Shoemaker

The only reason we have all this other stuff to wade through is because people didn't like Phyllis Seckler, or the idea of her having the authority she had earned. She had standards, she said what she thought, and she didn't put up with adolescent foolishness when she saw it. She was a trail blazer, and through her tenacity she carved out the niche in which the O.T.O. was capable of being reborn. If Grady McMurtry was the father of the modern O.T.O., then she is undeniably its Mother. Without her direct support and encouragement, we simply would not have the organizations I am proud to be a part of today.

I have been told I am simplifying things a great deal, and I might be. Those with vested interests in promulgation of revisionist history need this whole situation to be a lot more complicated to be able to weave alternate claims of legitimacy together. I've seen references to unpublished documents that allegedly contain "proof" that my conclusions are totally wrong, but in the same breath I'm told that these documents aren't supposed to be published and I just have to trust that they exist.

I am skeptical.

The documented facts led me to a remarkably simple conclusion, however:  The spiritual and administrative authority of A.'.A.'., and the office of its Praemonstrator, was passed down to the highest ranked and recognized member of the A.'.A.'. in good standing with both the O.T.O. and the A.'.A.'. at the death of Karl Germer, and has continued in its work and its service since the days of Aleister Crowley. R regardless of any other claims or arguments, only one active administrative body of A.'.A.'. can , to my satisfaction, trace itself back to Aleister Crowley through decree, degree, and bequeathment.

Over the course of the publication of these recent posts, I've had the opportunity to discuss the topics I'm bringing up with people from around the world, in multiple A.'.A.'. organizations around the globe that track their heritage back to Seckler, Motta, Grady McMurtry, and Gunther, and a surprising number of others that I didn't even know existed. People I've known for years in the occult community (and I mean people I've been friends with long before I ever considered joining any modern organized Thelemic group that goes back to Crowley) have contacted me and revealed their affiliation with groups that I had assumed were defunct or meaningless in the context of this discussion.

I was wrong about that. I've come to realize that my perspective has been pretty insular. I'm a US citizen, in the O.T.O. Kingdom of the United States, and my experiences have been heavily influenced by the people I have met in various lodges around the United States, and a bare handful of international members of our global fraternity. A lot has gone down since Motta passed, apparently, and it's been as bad as I had expected in some instances, and far better in others. Eventually.

The number of A.'.A.'. members around the world doing the work who have responded to this project has shifted my perspective on this subject quite a bit, while at the same time served to reinforce my conviction that the overall intent that started this is of global consequence when it comes to the relevance of the E.G.C., the O.T.O. and the A.'.A.'. when it comes to manifesting the Aeon of Horus and the fundamental aims of Hermetics on the planet that go back as long as we've had Herms in the first place.

Incredibly effective magicians are coming out of all the claimant groups. People I respected as "grimoire magicians" are secretly members of our collective heritage. Witches and sorcerors who seem to be focused only on the practical aspects of magick are working their wiles in service to the A.'.A.'. for the good of the whole rest of the world, whether the world can accept and understand it or not. They are literally everywhere.

They are doing the Work. They are experiencing the outcomes we are all striving towards. The exercises, practices, and study materials laid out by Crowley are working for people across the whole spectrum of practices we affiliate with publicly. The Work is actually doing what it's intended to do, and on a much broader and global scale than I ever dared hope.

Y'all are awesome. Thanks. I'm proud to be amongst the company I find myself in.
I still stand by the results of my own research to date. My opinions are pretty strong, and I think there is only one A.'.A.'. claimant group worth the time and effort I've put into it, historically, spiritually, and personally.

But I also recognize that those are my experiences, and my conclusions. I based my choice of claimant groups to join on the foundation of documented history, and my intractable practicality. My experiences have been awesome. I had supervisors who responded, encouraged me, challenged me, while leaving me to the resources that come with the program to reach my own conclusions. I've gotten out of the system everything (and more) that I've put into it.

From Cefalu to Sacramento Part 3: The A.'.A.'. after Karl Germer

The state of the Thelemic bodies on planet Earth after the death of Karl Germer left a certain something to be desired. While there were active O.T.O. members in Switzerland, and various charters floating around, there was no official Outer Head of the Order universally recognized. Within the US, Agape lodge had dwindled in size and had ceased performing initiations. As a result, there were less than a couple dozen active living members by the time Grady McMurtry agreed, in response to a letter from Seckler, to activate his Caliphate status and to take over as the head of the O.T.O.

Jane Wolfe, Phyllis Seckler, and Karl Germer

Aleister Crowley had left Grady McMurtry a letter designating him as the successor to Karl Germer where the O.T.O. was concerned. I've read a lot of commentaries about the intentions and the ideas that went into this designation, and it boils down to the fact that Crowley intuitively understood that the O.T.O. would be in trouble when Germer passed, so he made provisions by giving Grady McMurtry the Caliphate papers.

Unfortunately, there were no "caliphate" designations to the A.'.A.'.. To understand what's going on today, primarily within the United States, we must turn our attention back to Marcelo Motta, delve into his relationships with a handful of his various acolytes, followers, and direct reports within the testing order of the A.'.A.'. under his watch.

The following information is based largely on a careful reading of brother Wasserman's In the Center of the Fire. It is a condensed presentation of the detailed information he provides in his autobiography, his role in the history of the Order, and his understanding of events related to the members of the A.'.A.'. administration currently recognized as a partner with the O.T.O..

It is this relationship between the Orders that indirectly inspired my research into the history of the A.'.A.'.. As a result, I am focusing primarily on the events following the death of Karl Germer that led to the formation of this alternate administrative body, and how these events led to the situation I find myself in as a member of both the A.'.A.'. and the O.T.O.*.

As Frater Sabazius says, the O.T.O. can only ally itself with one Administrative body of the A.'.A.'.. They have currently made the choice to ally themselves with the administration led by J. Daniel Gunther, who traces himself indirectly back to the A.'.A.'. through Motta. He had some personal disagreements with his supervisor in the A.'.A.'., but he claims to have made direct contact with the Secret Chiefs to make up for the fact that he was no longer officially supervised by anyone actually in the A.'.A.'. that descends from Aleister Crowley, as one does.

Wasserman's In the Center of the Fire provides a detailed history of the events leading to the formation of this administrative body, and I was encouraged to read it by several people in the Order whenever we talked about the A.'.A.'.. It explains how Wasserman, in his position at Weiser Publications in the 1970s brought the members of this organization together, and details the timeline of events that led up to the formation of the new administration.

As Weiser published Crowley's books and the Thoth tarot deck, it became a communications hub for Thelemites from around the world. Correspondence came into the publisher the way it comes into the local bodies of the O.T.O. today, as people both new to the occult and old hands studying magick reached out to network with one another and discuss their studies and experiences. It was through Weiser that Wasserman met and corresponded with Motta, and eventually joined the A.'.A.'.. It was also through correspondence passing through Weiser that he was introduced to Richard "Gerney" Gernon, and J. Daniel Gunther.

The highlights of the timeline of events leading the initiations of these men into the A.'.A.'. as Wasserman recalls them are as follows:

• 1953 - Motta was initiated into the A.'.A.'. by Germer
• April, 1975 - James Wasserman signs the Oath of the Probationer under Motta. 
• August, 1975 - J. Daniel Gunther announces himself as "Frater K.N.", an A.'.A.'. contact point in Nashville, Tennessee to Weiser Publishing, where Wasserman received the letter. 
• Sometime in August-October 1975 - Gurnon introduces Gunther to Motta, and Motta apparently accepts Gunther into his A.'.A.'. 
• October 1975 - Bill Breeze takes the Probationer's Oath from Gunther

Wasserman's record of his life is a very honest presentation of his strengths and his weaknesses. I think it's important to remember the state of mind he would have been in throughout these early days, to help understand some of the choices he made. He unabashedly describes his ongoing use of heroin and other intoxicants throughout his life, and summarizes his character of this time period as young, inexperienced, and ill-equipped to handle the responsibilities he was given. He seems to have been both head-strong and easily impressionable at the same time. With that in mind, let's look at that timeline of events in more detail.

Through his position at Weiser Publications, Wasserman entered into a relationship with Motta, and this relationship had its ups and downs. While he ultimately signed the Oath of Probationer under Motta in April of 1975, he already had begun having concerns about allying himself with this leadership:

It would have happened six months earlier, as I had written to Motta in September 1974 requesting the Oath, just before he began his period of anti-Semitic rants. He later told me that my letter was lost in the mail. I was much relieved I had not bound myself to him on a spiritual level. But as things improved between us, I again requested the Oath."

Later in August, he received the announcement from Gunther that he was an A.'.A.'. point of contact in Tennessee. Wasserman goes on to explain that Gunther had no previous contact with anyone in the A.'.A.'. in real life, he had apparently been a student of the occult, read the works of Crowley, and was told by the Secret Chiefs that he was in the Order. Consequently, he of course wrote to the publisher of Crowley's writings, I assume to let them know that if anyone was interested, he was available as a contact of the A.'.A.'.. 

Wasserman was, by his own accounts during this period both youthful and filled with an enthusiasm that had not yet been tempered by experience. I personally have been in a position to see the kinds of letters we get at the local O.T.O. lodge from people in remote places who study the occult, and end up having a mystical experience that culminates, of course, in their being the chosen one of the Invisible College/Secret Chiefs/Alien Intelligences/Aiwass/Babalon/Ma'at, or whoever they'd most recently been studying that caught their fancy. Today, after surviving the New Age channelled writings of the gurus of the 1970s and 1980s, the occult community is more likely to toss grandiose self-proclamations directly into the trash as soon as they get them. 

Wasserman, it seems, hadn't yet reached that point. Instead, he decided he should introduce Gunther to his friend Gurney, "in hopes that we might learn more about this previously unknown individual and broaden our collective database, as it were."

Now, let's quote Wasserman's account of what happened, for posterity:

"As soon as Dan learned of Motta through Gurney, he contacted him. Motta forwarded the letter he received from Gunther and his reply. Frater K.N. (J. Daniel Gunther) informed Motta that he had been authorized by the Secret Chiefs to establish an 'American chapter of A.'.A.'.' and wished to cooperate."

Motta responded as a Secret Chief himself, to keep this whole scenario in context, saying "he didn't remember authorizing anything, that there were no "chapters" or other organizational bodies of the A.'.A.'. and that Gunther had mis-capitalized "Do what thou wilt" etc. in violation of the very commands of The Book of the Law."

So to recap, a guy in Nashville had an epiphany that he interpreted as a direct communication from the Secret Chiefs declaring him a member of the A.'.A.'. after reading the works of Aleister Crowley. He then wrote to Weiser announcing himself the contact point of A.'.A.'., and, when introduced to someone who he thought represented the A.'.A.'. had the temerity to declare that it was the Secret Chiefs themselves who authored his fantasies.

Motta, of course, mocked him, but also apparently took him on as a student, never mentioning that in fact, there was already an A.'.A.'. actively operating in California under a recognized member who had achieved Adeptus Minor under the actual auspices of Aleister Crowley and his successors, who was several grades higher than the grade Motta himself claimed to have achieved while his superior in the Order was alive (and shortly after his superior's death as well).

Also in 1975, Wasserman records Bill Breeze entering his life. He also says that in October of 1975, Breeze signed the Probationer's Oath during a visit from Gunther. Gunther had announced himself as contact of the A.'.A.'. in August, met Motta, been received as a student by Motta in that period, and then received Breeze as a Probationer in October of the very same year.

If you have never gone through the process of joining the A.'.A.'. that Crowley laid out in the Blue Equinox, you might miss the absolutely amazing series of events that had to have taken place in order for this to make any kind of sense at all. When you apply, you enter the Student phase of the Order. To get to Probationer, you must complete a Student test demonstrating your understanding the study materials of the Student phase. For reference, it took Frater Achad 4 years to complete the Student test.

Gunther must have completed the Student phase and test to Motta's satisfaction within the three-month period between announcing himself as a contact point of the A.'.A.'. in Nashville, and entered the Order as a Probationer. In that time, Breeze also would presumably have been expected to complete the Student phase, responded to the test, and received a passing grade. Motta would have had to present Gunther with a special dispensation as a Probationer to receive other Probationers on his behalf, and thus been able to receive Breeze in October.

That is, assuming they actually entered the Order by means of the processes of the administration of the A.'.A.'. that were described by Crowley in the Blue Equinox. They might have different standards and requirements, though. If they did follow the process, it is amazing that they were able to accomplish so much in such a short period of time.

The relationship between Bill Breeze and Marcelo Motta was short-lived. In 1976, Motta published his Commentaries of AL, which Breeze found to be incompatible with his understanding of Thelema. He cut off all contact with Motta upon reading this book, and he was one of the first in what quickly seems to become a trend. In brief, it can be said that after Motta published his "Commentaries of AL" some people started thinking he was insane, and stopped talking to him. Breeze was the first recorded in Wasserman's recount of history, but it spread.

Wasserman took his time coming to the conclusion that Motta's sanity was questionable at best, but ultimately all the men who formed the administrative body currently affiliated with the O.T.O. cut off contact with him, or were expelled into "the outer darkness" by Motta himself:

• 1976 - Bill Breeze cuts off contact from his end with Daniel Gunther over the Commentaries of AL.
• 1976, Early October - Motta cuts Wasserman off "from further correspondence" and Wasserman takes Daniel Gunther on as his Instructor. 
• 1976, (later in October apparently) - Motta instructs Daniel Gunther to cast James Wasserman into the Outer Darkness. Gunther obediently stops being Wasserman's Instructor. 
• 1978 - Daniel Gunther cuts off contact with Motta. 
• 1978 - Wasserman signs the Neophyte Oath in front of Grady McMurtry, who seems to have declared that he went from 0^○=0^□ to Magister Templi without even having completed the Probationer's Work according to his superior in the Order, because he felt like he had been through the Ordeals of the Grade as he understood them.
• 1980 - Richard "Gurney" Gernon cuts off contact with Motta.
• 1985 - Martin Starr cuts off contact with Motta. 

At this point, it should be pretty clear that Motta was really good at alienating his American students. None of the people listed in Wasserman's narrative managed to maintain any kind of good relationship with Motta. From In the Center of the Fire, it almost appears as if everyone who spent time with him ended up thinking Motta was insane and unfit to administrate the A.'.A.'..

By the end of 1985, all the people who would eventually end up forming a new administrative leadership of the A.'.A.'. had been expelled, cut off, or had voluntarily left the A.'.A.'. that was led by their superior, Marcelo Motta.

Meanwhile, Seckler’s de facto administration of A.'.A.'. had continued uninterrupted and without such schism and strife for more than two decades.

Gunther, whose original correspondence with Weiser included the claim to be a contact for the A.'.A.'. at the inspiration of the Secret Chiefs, eventually determined that he had the right approach back in the beginning. After leaving the auspices of his A.'.A.'. teacher, he followed up on this initial inspiration, and he claims to have forged a new link to the Secret Chiefs, thus conveniently legitimizing the organization he formed with Martin Starr.

I don't pretend to understand why they took this step at all. Frankly, if they were interested in a legitimate link to the actual A.'.A.'. that Crowley had set up before he died, they all knew Phyllis personally.

They literally had her phone number.

All they had to do was call her.

But no one did that. In spite of knowing she was recognized as a 5^○=6^□ by Karl Germer, and had been trained in the actual Work by those who had done it themselves, including a superior in the Order who had studied directly at the feet of Crowley.

It made more sense to them to should go off on their own and establish their own neo-A.'.A.'. rather than subjecting themselves to the leadership of the last legitimate Adept of the organization they seemed to hold in such high regard.

Maybe if I'd been there to experience it first hand, the actions they took wouldn't seem to be quite the self-serving steps taken by expelled, resigned, or disgusted ex-followers of a Zelator that they appear to be in retrospect.

Regardless, history is history. In 1985, Grady died, and Bill Breeze was elected the Outer Head of the Ordo Templi Orientis. As Outer Head, he chose to ally the O.T.O. with the administrative organization led by Daniel Gunther, as was his right. I should note that I fully support the work of Breeze in his role of O.H.O. of O.T.O., and nothing in this discussion should be taken to mean otherwise. I stand with Seckler herself in recognition of his leadership of the Order.

The O.T.O. currently continues to officially work closely with this administrative group, although there are hundreds of initiates from other A.'.A.'. claimant groups working productively within the O.T.O. as well, at all levels of membership and in administrative capacities.

But during this time, Phyllis Seckler was not idle. Seckler’s contributions to the O.T.O. are seldom called into question. It is known that she was the impetus that resulted in Grady exercising his Caliphate papers after the death of Karl Germer. Her participation in the initiations in the mid-1970s of new members is also on record, and there is little dispute that she is one of the main reasons the O.T.O. exists at all today. Her perseverance, her dedication, and her discretion kept the O.T.O. vibrant, authentic, and fundamentally alive.

Her Work in the A.'.A.'. continued as well, though with considerably less public recognition or acknowledgment. With the death of Karl Germer, she found herself in the position of being the highest ranked documented A.'.A.'. initiate on the planet, and saying so in this way puts a particularly fine point on a subject many people would like to see disappear.

Seckler had Sascha Germer and Marcelo Motta corresponding with her about all manner of things regarding the successorship of the O.T.O. and the bodies of Thelema. Her responses are vague, and tended to mollify his claims, mostly in the interests of keeping peace so that the establishment of Thelema could continue uninterrupted.

Throughout her life in the Order, and since her passing, she has not been afforded, in my opinion, the respect or recognition she earned by virtue of her dedication to her personal Work, and the establishment of Thelema as a living, breathing, and growing body. I've often speculated that had she been born a man, we'd be a part of a completely different Thelemic community.

Instead, we have the kinds of statements we find in In the Center of the Fire related to her alleged complicity to the thefts of documents from the O.T.O. library that border on slander. Wasserman at one moment acknowledges Germer's confirmation of her degree, and in the next rejects her advice relative to Reguli, even though her warnings about his activities mirrored exactly the conclusion he reached in later self-assessment. Even in comments on this series of posts, standards of authentication are brought up that apply, apparently, to her alone. Her attainment is questioned, her authority is questioned, her activities (documented at length) are questioned, and history itself is rewritten to conform to a story that simply never happened.

Furthermore, Wasserman's published complaints that Grady failed to "muzzle" Phyllis in her expressions of her opinions, historical facts, and the harsh realities he was not equipped to process at the time show neither respect nor reverence for a member of the Sovereign Sanctuary. He refers to her as if she were a dog, rather than the person whose efforts ensured that he himself had a chance to become a member of the O.T.O., and who was the highest-legitimately-ranked member of the A.'.A.'. at the death of Karl Germer .

Seckler never publicly took actions that she felt were harmful to the Orders, and while she would defend her status and her Work to the very end, she maintained a low profile for the sake of peace.

Instead, she continued her Work. She took on the responsibilities of the administrative triumvirate of the A.'.A.'., serving as the de facto Praemonstrator, Imperator, and Cancellarius as Crowley and Germer had before her. She continued to take on new students (not that there were very many during that Thelemic “dark age” from the early 1960's to the early 1970's,) to teach the lessons of the A.'.A.'., testing the students as she had been tested, and implementing the structure of the A.'.A.'. Crowley had left behind, in some cases for the first time in history.

Over the years, she continued to maintain the formulae of the A.'.A.'. as Crowley intended them. Records of students writing her, receiving the list of required documents, and their subsequent tests and advancement through the degrees attest to this fact. It is public knowledge that she partnered with James Eshelman for a time (though they were not on speaking terms at the end of her life) and passed her teachings on to others who continue to work with students in their own rights as legitimate heirs to the legacy of the A.'.A.'.. Although Seckler had also founded the College of Thelema in the early 1970s as an additional avenue of instruction, her administration of A.'.A.'. proper never ceased.

* This post largely ignores the history of the various claimant groups throughout Central and South America. There are groups today that claim heritage from Motta around the world, and they seem to have had a very different experience than is represented in either the correspondence between Germer, Motta, and Seckler, or in In the Center of the Fire.

From Cefalu to Sacramento Part 2: Enter Marcelo Motta

Picking up where we left off in the previous installment, Aleister Crowley and Karl Germer both served as superiors to Jane Wolfe within the A.'.A.'., and Wolfe served as superior to Phyllis Seckler until her health failed. Germer gradually took over as Seckler's de facto superior and, along the way, recognized her as a 5^○=6^□ in 1952. At his death, without declaring a clear successor (more on this later), the leadership of the Order was in question. It is reasonable to assume that leadership should pass to someone with significant spiritual “seniority," in terms of their actual grade, and also someone who could ably bear the authority of V.V.V.V.V., as evidenced by their own interior linkage to this spiritual source, as well as the fruits of their work in the world. As we will demonstrate, the person most qualified to inherit this mantle of leadership was Phyllis Seckler.

However, at this time, a man already exhibiting the symptoms of mental illness that would echo throughout his lifetime chose to declare himself the head of the A.'.A.'., and later attempted to claim that the O.T.O. was also his inheritance. As we will see, his self-declaration of achievement, and demand of recognition in his self-proclaimed roles set the pattern of events that continue to echo through to today.

This man was Marcelo Motta. Among many other roles he carved out for himself in his lifetime, he became a thorn in the side of the modern O.T.O., the catalyst of our legal recognition as the sole continuation of Aleister Crowley's O.T.O., and perhaps one of the least mentally stable sources of the current state of affairs related to the number of "administrative bodies" claiming to represent the A.'.A.'. created by Aleister Crowley

Marcelo Motta was apparently initiated as a member of the Fraternitas Rosicrucianus Antiqua (FRA) in Brazil at the ripe old age of 17. He left Brazil under political pressure to travel to Europe and the United states, and later he portrayed this voyage as being part of a mission assigned to him by the leadership of the Brazilian FRA, to meet the head of their order at the time, one Parsifal Krumm-Heller. Parsifal was the son of Arnold Krumm-Heller, who had written a novel about the Rosicrucians that inspired young Motta.

Arnold Krumm-Heller was a German fascist sympathizer and Hitler apologist who spent much of his adult life in Central and South America, serving as a military advisor, mercenary, and aiding various governments in their wars as he saw fit. One of the first ex-O.T.O. members, he was initiated into the O.T.O. as a contemporary of Theodore Reuss. He met with Aleister Crowley, and thought highly of his works in the esoteric communities. He went on to form the FRA based on his own understanding and ongoing study of the occult arts.

Marcelo Motta, years later, found his way to the teachings of Aleister Crowley through the writings of John Symonds, specifically the book The Great Beast. Initially nervous about accepting the teachings of the Wickedest Man in the World, it was Parsifal Krumm-Heller, the legal leader of the FRA, who managed to convince Motta that there was something of value to be found in Thelema.

Motta was born in 1931, and Symonds' book was published in 1951. Parsifal Krumm-Heller eventually went on to introduce Motta to Karl Germer in 1953. When Motta was first introduced to the ideas, teachings, and philosophies of the Great Beast, he would have been between the ages of 20-22 years. He would have been studying the FRA teachings for 3-5 years at this point, with, we presume the same level of intent he showed later in his life as a Probationer.

I can only imagine what it was like moving into Crowley's work from the perspective of a person trained in the esoteric arts by a German fascist sympathizer and Hitler apologist who created his own Rosicrucian Order when extant Orders failed to provide him with the education he thought they should teach. Later events indicate the cognitive dissonance between his early exposure to the occult sciences and the liberating truths presented in the A.'.A.'. and the O.T.O. were in conflict throughout Motta's occult career.

In 1953, Parsifal introduced Motta to Karl Germer, and Germer offered Motta initiation into the O.T.O. or the A.’. A.'.. Motta chose the A.'.A.'., having no interest in the O.T.O.

I've looked for some documentation that indicated the Motta actually signed a Probationer's Oath and took on the Work officially under Germer. That documentation doesn't exist. Germer was not as interested in keeping track of signed Oaths as I sometimes wish he were.

It makes sense--it's not like he signed the Adeptus Minor's Oath in a concentration camp before he attained K&C of the HGA. These were the "pioneer" days, as Crowley commented in Jane Wolfe's diaries, the days when the active leadership members were also the active Candidates pursuing the Work with all their hearts, minds, and spirits.

Motta's A.'.A.'. career is difficult to track, as a result. All we have are the records of what he claimed publicly, and some correspondence between himself and Germer. From these records, I've managed to put together the following:

• 1953 - Karl Germer accepts Marcelo Motta in the A.'.A.'.. I would hope that Germer gave him the list of Student Materials, told him to go study them, and let him know when he was ready for the student test. I doubt that happened in real life though. What we do know is that, according to Motta, in ....
• 1960 - 7 years after his initial acceptance into the A.'.A.'., Motta claims to have completed the Probationer Work. I personally find it fascinating that it took him 7 years to complete the Probationer Work. Rumor has it that C.F. Fuller took 4 years to finish the Student Test. I've taken it, and I understand, it's an ordeal. But in 7 years, Motta went from Student to the completion of Probationer Work, by his own claims. Seckler was 5^○=6^□ in 12 years. 
• 1961 - A year after he claimed he completed the Probationer Work, Motta published a copy of Liber Aleph. In the Imprimatur of that work, his symbol appears with the indication he is a 6^○=5^□. While this might be considered an “honorary” grade of Adeptus Major, it would only have been so in the same way that JFC Fuller was noted as a 5^○=6^□ on various Imprimaturs published while Crowley lived. In reality Fuller still remained a Probationer. This Imprimatur might have established him as a member of the administration of the A.'.A.'., if it were in fact recognized and supported by anything written by Germer. Instead, correspondence shows that Germer had a completely different response after Motta began making certain claims:
• 1962, June - In response to some megalomaniacal and disturbing claims made by Motta, Karl Germer responds unequivocally and clearly as his superior in the A.'.A.'. that Motta is "a Neophyte, at best*."
• 1962, July - To which Marcelo Motta responded... "Yea, you're right, I renounce any claims to anything higher." I'm paraphrasing, but Motta agreed with Germer that he was nothing more than a Neophyte.
• 1962, October - Karl Germer dies, without naming anyone to follow him as the leader of the O.T.O. or the A.'.A.'. in writing. There are claims that Sascha said Germer named him “the Follower” on his death bed, but these fail to hold much water in full context. While there is no clear paper trail validating claims to Motta’s succession as head of the A.'.A.'., even those groups who claim he was the heir to the A.'.A.'. recognize and support the fact that Motta was suffering from multiple mental illnesses. These mental illnesses effectively left him incompetent to administer anything at the time of Germer’s death. 
• 1963, January – Motta writes a letter to Sascha Germer in which he signs off as a 2^○=9^□, effectively claiming his status as Zelator.

Motta's A.'.A.'. Path to Zelator

So at the death of Karl Germer, Marcello Motta acknowledged he was a Neophyte, at best. Some sources indicate he completed the Zelator work shortly before the death of Germer, but I haven't seen anything other than his own writings that indicate his superior in the Order acknowledged his claims in any way.

Again, this only matters because people, mostly Motta at the time, but later others, claimed that Motta was somehow the legitimate successor to the A.'.A.'. and the O.T.O. Though Sascha Germer later noted to Motta that he was named “the Follower” on Germer’s death bed, the veracity of this claim, the context, and the state of mind of Germer at the time is unknown. When combined with the mental state of Sascha, as shown in her correspondences with Motta, this claim seems likely spurious. Motta himself expressed confusion about what this “Follower” business meant, in a letter to Sascha after Germer’s death. Regardless, the obvious deterioration of Motta’s mental state, as attested to by his own writings and the reactions of his disciples, students, co-workers, and everyone else who worked with him makes it abundantly clear that he was mentally incompetent to lead anything at the time of Germer’s death or beyond.

Following Karl Germer's death, Seckler maintained correspondence with Sascha Germer, Marcelo Motta, Gerald Yorke, and many others as she sought to figure out what should happen next. Reading through the old letters between Seckler and Motta, it becomes pretty clear that she was already aware that he had reached the disconnection with sanity later noted by Wasserman in In the Center of the Fire. In her letters, she would placate his more extreme statements, while continuing to strive to accomplish the best interests of the Orders. Her dedication to the preservation of fraternity and peace at the time continues to impact the circumstances we find ourselves in to this day.

Looking back, I really wish she had been more strident about the administrative succession of the A.'.A.'.. I appreciate that she wanted to keep peace for the good of Thelema, but she had a right that she never chose to exercise because she didn't want to make trouble. She was a woman in a male-dominated world, and we can see how the men treated her in the 1970s through the 1980s in Wasserman’s account, and how the men she was inspiring to re-form Thelema and the O.T.O. treated her personally, esoterically, and professionally. She chose the honorable route, laying down her rights so that people would focus more on rebuilding the O.T.O. rather than being yet another divisive voice in the crowd. While I respect her choices, I regret that they were necessary.

Seckler did, however, leave us an important document detailing her concerns about claimant groups opportunistically attempting to claim A.'.A.'. as their own, as well as her views of her own grade status, and that of Marcelo Motta.  This document, drafted in 2000 e.v. near the end of her life, was her commentary on the Constitution of the Order of Thelemites.  While this document doesn’t pertain to successorship in A.’.A.’. per se, it does make clear her views on relevant matters such as those mentioned above.  Reprinted here in its entirety:

From The Kabbalah, Magick, and Thelema, Selected Writings Vol.II

* The context of this quote is:

"If one tried to go into refuting or arguing your recent letters one would run the risk of getting contaminated by the demonic forces that have got a hold of you. What I will do is give you the benefit of my experience. It has been my privilege or misfortune to have to watch at least a score of “experts of delusion” in the last more than thirty-five years of my connection with Thelema!)

"What you claim – the title of BEAST – is only minor, i.e. a repeat of another title. (Yet Crowley assumed the grade only 15 years after he had become M.T., while you are at best a Neophyte!)"

From Cefalu to Sacramento Part 1: Crowley through Seckler

Note: Months ago, we started exploring the history of the A.'.A.'., and I thought it would be fun to type up how we went from where Crowley started things to our current experiences. I thought it would be a couple weeks between posts, but the more I got into it, the bigger the "next" post became, until I ended up with a 6600-word essay that's definitely in the TL;DR category. I've broken that piece into several more-digestable parts that will be published over the next few weeks. 

From Cefalu to Sacramento 

Part 1: From Crowley to Seckler

Trying to figure out why there are so many different A.'.A.'. groups today led me to ask David Shoemaker how it all happened. His response began, "Well, to really understand that, you have to go back to the state of affairs when Germer died..."

We went on to have a discussion that went on over multiple evenings. These conversations filled in the gaps in my understanding, and explained the situation clearly. I had already gone through several of Jane Wolfe and Phyllis Seckler’s diaries, books, and personal correspondences, and had a pretty solid understanding of their personal experiences and the kinds of things they recorded for themselves, their superiors, and the things they said publicly. The things David Shoemaker shared filled in the practical, administrative, and functional gaps of the narrative that don’t get mentioned in magical diaries, or the kinds of letters shared between Phyllis and her superior in the Order about her HGA experiences, or in regular publications.

Reading Brother Wasserman's In the Center of the Fire provided an alternate view of the events surrounding a lot of the Order’s history, and shed some light on the peculiar impact of Marcelo Motta on the state of affairs we have to deal with today. While I completely disagree with Wasserman’s conclusions about Seckler, his memoir of the time provides a raw look at his experiences with the key players he interacted with and his own involvement with them.

Furthermore, Wasserman’s account is presented with a no-holds-barred honesty in which he documents the correlation between uncontrolled drug addiction and grandiose spiritual experiences, his own naiveté as a child of the sixties, and his fundamental lack of preparation to face the trials and ordeals he went through during this period of his life.

Tracking down reliable information relative to the claimants who trace themselves back through Grady McMurtry was more difficult. While there are reams of published materials available on the internet, much of it comes from questionable resources and unverifiable claims. Sifting through that was a nightmare full of dead ends, as you can imagine.

I ended up reaching out to my friends who trace their A.'.A.'. experiences back to Grady McMurtry, and wound up receiving an honest and clean account from a first-hand eye witness to the stuff that went down when it was going down. There are some interesting arguments related to the authority of Grady to take on students, or to represent the A.'.A.'. as its leader that, frankly, don’t make much sense to me. That said, with a couple notable exceptions, the people I’ve met in groups descended from Grady are consistently the kind of magicians I like to hang out with. They generally have done the Work, and have integrated it to the point where they can carry on a decent conversation without it degenerating into meaninglessness.

Documenting the history of the orders up through the last quarter of the 20th century e.v. is fairly easy. The people in question have left historic records, and their writings are fixed reference points to which we can refer as we discuss history. It’s historically documented. However, when we start getting past the 1970s e.v., we start to interact with people who are still alive, which makes it a lot harder to say, “this is what they did in their lives, and at the end of their incarnations in this plane, this is what they accomplished and what they’ve left us to sort through.” We simply can’t speak of the living conclusively, because they haven't, ah... concluded.

And because they haven't concluded yet, there's a lot left that can happen. Minds might change, people might see things differently, apparent successors might renounce all occultism and return to the religion of their birth, leaving everyone else wondering what the actual heck just happened, as one (cough cough cough Achad cough cough cough) does.

With this in mind, I think it’s probably best to just delineate the main points to date as they pertain to other people’s public statements, and then to focus on the events leading the A.’. A.’. to Sacramento.
Over the course of this work, I’ve been keeping track of things as they unfold using a timeline that shows the ongoing chain of events. It’s been pretty useful, I must say. I like pictures, dates, and small words to summarize things, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this is definitely that picture:

The Whole Enchilada

But a picture isn’t a thousand words, really. So let’s tell the story then, shall we?

We’ll begin at Cefalu.

It's April 1920, and Aleister Crowley and his whole squad is totally on point. He is Magus, he is the Prophet, he is the gate of manifestation of the Aeon of Horus, and he's got one of the very first hippy communes ever set up, in beautiful Cefalu, Sicily. He's got acolytes, disciples, and groupies. He's got it going on. The Abbey of Thelema is open for spiritual business, there's drugs, there's ceremonial magick, there's asana and pranayama, and all the sex you can imagine.

Things are going pretty well, if he does say so himself.

And he's not just a local phenomenon. His reputation and influence has spread around the world, even to the silver screen of Hollywood. He has been in touch with a young starlet named Jane Wolfe, and she has agreed to come and join him on his adventure, to participate in the grand experiment, and to devote herself to the teachings of the A.'.A.'..

When she arrived, she immersed herself into the communal life. Her diaries of the seven years she spent at Cefalu are a clear demonstration of what it was that Crowley expected from his A.'.A.'. students in real life. The exercises he assigned her, the documentation requirements, the progress made and the hand written feedback in the margins are a clear record of what it means to be a member of the A.'.A.'. the way Crowley ran things in actual practice. He came pretty close to following his own recommended approaches to things, but there were a lot of deviations as he saw fit. It's amazing to have such a complete record of what Crowley actually did with his students through her diary entries.

A Closer View of Jane Wolfe's Time at Cefalu

She spent three years with Crowley at Cefalu. She ended up leaving after Loveday died, but before Mussolini was convinced to kick Crowley out of Italy. Crowley sent her first to London, expecting her to single-handedly put together a Cefalu Mark II on her own, with little resources, few contacts, and no source of income.

This didn't exactly work out the way Crowley had hoped. Wolfe spent months trying different tactics to find a way to help Crowley accomplish his intentions, but there was little money, less support, and none of the kinds of financial windfalls that would have been necessary for her to succeed in her mission. Over time, her health deteriorated, and she eventually had to return to the United States for surgery and recuperation.

When she had recovered, she returned to the service of the OTO and A.'.A.'.  in California, joining Wilfred Smith at Agape Lodge II, which took the place of Smith’s initial efforts at Agape Lodge I in Vancouver, British Columbia in Canada. By the end of World War II in 1945, she was a pillar of the last remaining Thelemic community on the planet. Various individual members remained scattered around the world, and maintained communications with Crowley and Germer, but Agape Lodge had become the last active group in the body of the Order. And it was beset by the challenges of the birth pains of the Aeon, both within and without.

It was here that Wolfe met Phyllis Seckler, who became her student in the A.'.A.'.. Seckler was a pragmatic and intense person, whose experience as a high school teacher educating adolescents served her well in her later years in both the O.T.O. and the A.'.A.'.. Between June of 1940, and June of 1952, Seckler applied her tenacity, intelligence, and her Will to accomplishing the Work of A.'.A.'.. During this time, Wolfe's health again deteriorated, and eventually Karl Germer took over Seckler’s direct supervision within the A.'.A.'.. He acknowledged her attainment of the 5^○=6^□ grade in 1952, first in personal correspondence with Jane Wolfe, and later directly to Seckler.

The two continued their relationship as student and teacher throughout the rest of Germer's life. When he died in 1962, Seckler's actual grade was not a matter of public knowledge or commentary, but she was officially, per the O.H.O. of the O.T.O. and Head of the A.'.A.'., recognized as 5^○=6^□. This, as we will see, becomes important as time goes by.

In our next installment, we'll examine one of the primary sources of conflict within the Orders historically, the echoes of whose madness continue to be heard today.

United States of Hoodoo Screening and Q&A with Darius James at Leaping Laughter Lodge Tonight!

This Friday, join Leaping Laughter Lodge and Darius James for The United States of Hoodoo!

Movie night at the lodge is a normally a chance to hang out, watch some interesting films, and enjoy a lively discussion about the films as we watch, or after. This month though, we have a special treat. We’ll be showing the United States of Hoodoo, and thanks to some connections to the writer, we will have Darius James joining us via Skype after the screening for discussion on hoodoo, the making of the film, and a Q&A session! The film is focused on “how African based spirituality has influenced America´s popular culture. The old African gods have taken on new forms since their arrival on North America's shores. Their spirit now manifests itself in turn-table wizardry, improvisational skills and mind-blowing collages, rituals and performances. The film shakes up traditional and stereotypical ways of thinking about race, religion, rationality. Through meetings with musicians, writers and artists, miracle healers, gumbo cooks and Mississippi Blues men, this documentary explores a culture which has always drawn on a unique mix of different ethnic influences to produce its cultural diversity, allure, and vitality.”

Darius James was a close high school friend of Sallie Ann Glassman, who was recently interviewed by our own Deputy Lodge Master Harper Feist for the Thelema Now! Podcast. Currently, he is exploring the spiritual reality of Haitian voodoo through his friend, Val Jeanty, the electronic drummer featured in the documentary.

PLEASE NOTE: Darius has recently suffered a house fire, and without insurance is facing the huge task of replacing his hearth and home and all his possessions on his own. All donations received this month from Movie Night will be forwarded on to his crowd-funding recovery campaign. I can tell you, house fire recovery sucks, even when no one is injured.

Come one, come all, join us for an evening exploring the kind of practical magic that makes what we do meaningful in this whole “Great Work” thing we do. Suggested donation is $15 at the door, but whatever you bring will be appreciated!"

https://www.gofundme.com/tcvtsmzw

Opening Remarks of 2016 OTO Symposium "Women and the Feminine in Thelema"

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Sweet sisters and brothers,

I’m Harper Feist, the Deputy Master of Leaping Laughter Lodge here in the Twin Cities and I am hugely honored to be the on-site Chair of this 2016 OTO Womens’ Symposium.  Thank you all for coming!

I have a short statement prepared for this august event and I have three pieces of business to address.  First, there is the matter of THANKS. Then there will be a couple of moments focused on pragmatics.  After that, I want to address the symposium logo and my infatuation with the Statue of Liberty.  The flames on the logo are the hearth fires of the OTO, maintained by the women, ignited by Liberty.

I had a teacher once who said, “If you only practice gratitude, it is enough.” In that vein, I offer thanks in what I hope is chronological order (please raise your hand as I acknowledge you):

Ixel Balamke, the master of LLL, for suggesting this crazy thing in the first place.

Rufus Opus, my partner in all the crimes and the AV dude for the conference.  Also the bourbon expert.  Good guy to know.

Nessa Cohorn, my wonder twin and US Conference Guru, for emails without count, jokes without tasteful boundaries, and that little ritual to make sure everything worked out just right. It probably resulted in someone thinking he was having a hot flash.  You and I have work to do together, you know.

To Magenta, of LLL, who knows the Twin Cities better than anyone else, and who helped my craft the FAQ email.

To our ritual team, Elizabeth, Rufus, Ixel, Hunahpu, Joni and Fr. Barabbas. You will all see later why thanks should profuse and tasty.  Standing with you, we will all be gods.

To Kat, our graceful muse and introducer par excellence.  Thanks for taking an important job, recognized at the last moment.

To Joni, my fellow moderator at the panel discussion.  Thanks for helping me swing that microphone!

To Kelly, our event photographer.  She normally shoots footage of athletic events, so I hope you do not disappoint her.

To Sam, our sound engineer and DJ. He’s seriously doing it.

To Hunahpu:  the chocolate and roses were just right.

To Josh, Kirstine and Andrew, who are ready to do anything.  Over the course of the next couple of years, you’ll know exactly what you signed up for.

To Martin, my runner.  Only time will tell how much exercise you’ll get this weekend!

To the staff of Hotel Minneapolis, who’ve been wonderful to work with and who will be showing us the best time the Twin Cities has to offer this weekend

Thanks to you all!

A brief break into the pragmatic:

The schedule is on-line only, but we’ll have a hard copy of it posted near the door.  If you need help, look for the folks with LLL on the corner of their name tag.  They all have my cell phone number and will run to ground any issue you have.

The presentation room is called Equity and is downstairs.  We’ll be having the ceremony there on Sunday afternoon after lunch.

As I mentioned, the hotel staff is here to make you visit more pleasant than you thought possible, if you need anything, they will gladly direct you at the front desk.  If we LLL folks can help further, please let us know!

So, who among you have a relationship with the Statue of Liberty?

I have loved her since I was a little Thelemite, knee-high to a groundhog….no, I mean a gopher.  This IS Minnesota, after all.  I was five when I decided that the spikes sticking out of her head were much better than a halo, and I was right.

The statue of Liberty was a gift to the United States from France, and was entitled, LIBERTY ENLIGHTING THE WORLD.  She was forged in copper and transported in pieces to New York City.  The build was final and the statue dedicated in 1886. The statue is of a robed female figure representing Libertas, the Roman goddess, who bears a torch and a tabula ansata (a tablet evoking the law) upon which is inscribed the date of the American Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776. A broken chain lies at her feet. The statue is an icon of freedom and of the United States, and was a welcoming sight to immigrants arriving from abroad.

The American poet, Emma Lazarus, wrote a poem during the construction of the base to raise money for the erection of the statue, and it was this poem that firstly brought my attention back to the statue during my preliminary efforts at organization.  I’d like to read it to you:

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

My sisters and brothers, gaze into one another’s fierce and gorgeous eyes.  We are that lightning; we are that flame, we are the chains, broken beneath our feet.

Welcome to the 2016 OTO Women’s Symposium, “Women and the Feminine in the Thelema!”

Love is the law, love under will!

Women's Symposium Original Ritual: The Courtship of Babalon and Chaos

The Courtship of Babalon and Chaos

Closing Ritual for the OTO Women’s Symposium, August 2016

By Harper Feist

(With thanks for word wrangling by Rufus Opus, the first Chaos, and blocking help from the original team, Elizabeth Miner, Ixel Balamke and Hunahpu, Joni Watling and Frater Barrabas.)

4 and 7 is 11.

Setting

• LED candles suspended from ceiling (about 30 needed)
• Bright light over the place where B will stand
• Black veil in the east, perhaps on the dais with a throne behind
• Double-cube altar in the center
• Personae dramatis: A priest who plays Chaos, a priestess who plays Babalon, a deacon who plays a deacon, four attendants in black, one soldier at the door.

Female Attendants: sing the Babalon chant as people gather before the door.

Deacon Speech

DEACON:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!

Welcome to Leaping Laughter Lodge’s presentation of the original ritual entitled “The Courtship of Babalon and Chaos.” This Eucharistic rite was inspired by an essay written by Soror Helena and Frater Sabazius regarding the Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Mass. In it, the Babalon/Chaos couple was equated to other creation Goddess/God pairs, including those that are the topic of the world’s first written story, Inanna and Dumuzi. We borrow some of the original Sumerian words from this story, both the translated and transliterated texts, for the actual courtship portion of the rite.

At the heart of the rite, there is the adoration of Babalon, though, so there must be a blood sacrifice (ham this up). This will be accomplished figuratively with a small portion of wine that you will be given when you enter the temple. There will be a part in the ritual where you take the tube of wine – now your blood – and pour it into the cup brought to you by an attendant.

There will come a time in the ritual when I (Deacon) perform a brief adoration to Babalon. Please join me in any way that you desire.

Shortly after this section, you and I will share a call and response piece. I will turn outward toward the congregation to make this clear. When the call and response portion is complete, I will turn back to the action in the ritual and address myself to the Priestess and Priest.

This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacred vessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Mother of Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rideth upon our Lord the Beast.

Thou shalt drain out thy blood that is thy life into the golden cup. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life. Thou shalt keep not back one drop.

Love is the law, love under will.

The people process into the temple. The female attendants give out the tubes of wine.

The Opening Scenario

Chaos sits in the east, behind a veil (on a throne on dais steps).

People gather in a vesica piscis shape. The chairs will be rearranged to that they can sit. Once all the people are in and calm, the attendants should take up their positions around the altar. They are to be living pillars in the temple.

Deacon waits for congregation to settle, then acknowledges continuous presence of chaos (talking to the curtain):

D: Blackness, blackness intolerable, before the beginning of the light. Beginning ineffable, darkness unbroken, creation awaiting in potential, energy pausing for the arrival of matter.  Holy art thou, Chaos, Chaos, ever and never present, you are the rushing, the leaping, the swirling, unpredictability, the delicious strange attractor.

D: You are the snake that devoureth the spirit of man with the lust of light. You are the sightless storm in the night that wrappeth the world about with desolation. Chaos is your name, and you are the blessed thick power and potence. You pour yourself into the material world, the creation of experience. The God we feel in the quickening pulse, the god we feel in the quickening womb.

D: Seemingly, you move without plan, without art, but all was established in the beginning, your Genesis is the butterfly’s wing.

D: Are you the dark or the light? All the double phenomena are only two ways of looking at a single phenomenon; and the single phenomenon is Peace.

CHAOS: Aye, this present Cosmos is the War of the Rose and the Cross, but I was the singular blackness, a blackness intolerable. Before “In the beginning,” it was written, “Holy art thou, Chaos, Chaos, Eternity, all contradictions in terms!”

C: Yet Cosmos must come, and in this Cosmos must the balance be set up where there was no need of balance, because there was no injustice, but only truth. But when the balances are equal, scale matched with scale, then will Chaos return.

C: Beneath my feet is the kingdom, and upon my head the crown. I AM is spirit and matter; I AM is peace and power; in me is Chaos and Night and Pan, and thus also upon Babalon my concubine, that hath made me drunk upon the blood of the saints that she hath gathered in her golden cup. And this is that which is written: Malkuth shall be uplifted and set upon the throne of Binah.

Deacon indicates that people should stand.

Babalon walks from west side of room to center on west side of altar. She is dressed in red under white wrapping, covering her entirely. She should look a lot like a mummy.  She says nothing and stands under the one bright light.

Gong begins…
ATTENDANTS: Wine Collection - Each beginning at a cardinal direction, and moving clockwise. Female Attendants in North and West, Male Attendants in East and South.

Each will collect about 15 tubes of wine.  It will likely take 7-10 minutes. The attendants should make this portion of the event impactful and heavy, by being slow, deliberate and somber. People can keep their test tubes.

DEACON: Pours out all the peoples wine into the chalice, delivers to Babalon.

BABALON: Drinks Wine from Chalice.

Gong playing peaks when she is drinking the wine. When wine is gone, silence.  
ATTENDANTS: Four attendants remove white wrapping, revealing red garments, women on the north side of the temple, men on the south. After the unveiling, the wrapping should be left on the floor, draped as artfully as possible in a second or two.

Attendants resume their places.

Adoration of BABALON.

CALL AND RESPONSE: Call and response with congregants, this should be practiced with shills before the actual ritual. DEACON: “Please repeat after me….”

D: I love thee, O Lady of Holy Lust
[Congregation Repeats]

D: I pour myself into your divine and holy Cup
[Congregation Repeats]

D: Thou who gavest us flesh to clothe our naked spirits
[Congregation Repeats]

D: thou who art the loveliness of the Great Sea
[Congregation Repeats]

D: the wet and fertile smell of soil
[Congregation Repeats]

D: the howl of the newly born
[Congregation Repeats]

D: the gasp of the newly dying
[Congregation Repeats]

D: you who art the womb of woman
[Congregation Repeats]

D: and womb of Earth
[Congregation Repeats]

DEACON: Makes the sign of Harpocrates and turns her back to the congregation. She may fall to her knees before Babalon if she desires.

D: And thou who art called by man
Mother of Abominations
the divine mystery of whose adulteries
is that thou yieldest thyself to all things
Beautiful art thou, O Babalon, and desirable
and in thy weakness hath subdued the strength of all
therefore art thou called Understanding, O Babalon,
I love thee, blessed Lady of the Night!
I beg thee, Rider of the Beast,
cremate all the dross within me
make me new again and simple
I beg thee to remove from me
that which I am no longer
Leave only the perfect structure of Now
Ignite the fuse that leads to god and God
so that I, like you, may burn in the innocent violence
of sacred incineration
And when the abyssal hole appears
I beg thee be reaching to me from the other side
as I continually pour myself into your divine and holy Cup

BABALON: Lifts Deacon to her feet, and kisses her. Then she responds:

B: There is nothing that I have not trampled beneath my feet. There is nothing that I have not set a garland on my brow. I have wound all things about my waist as a girdle. I have hidden all things in the cave of my heart. I have slain all things because I am Innocence. I have lain with all things because I am Untouched Virginity. I have given birth to all things because I am Death. Stainless are my lips, for they are redder than the purple of the vine, and of the blood wherewith I am intoxicated.

B: Stainless is my forehead, for it is whiter than the wind and the dew that cooleth it. I am light, and I am night, and I am that which is beyond them. I am speech, and I am silence, and I am that which is beyond them. I am life, and I am death, and I am that which is beyond them. I am war and I am peace, and I am that which is beyond them. I am weakness, and I am strength, and I am that which is beyond them. Yet by none of these can man reach up to me. Yet by each of them must man reach up to me. Thou shalt laugh at the folly of the fool. Thou shalt learn the wisdom of the Wise. And thou shalt be initiate in holy things. And thou shalt be learned in the things of love, in the many things of love, and all the myriad things of love.]

B: I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union. This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all. Dissolution. I am ready to dissolve and to be dissolved, to disappear into oneness….

C: So many stories are our story, beloved one – Once I was a young god strolling near the Euphrates and I said, “I sing your name BABALON, O BABALON, As I walk, as I walk, as I pass along the banks of the august river, as I roam along the banks of the Euphrates, as I pass along the gaudy streets: O my beautiful One, may you be as a seed planted in the dark and fertile soil; may you be the root; may you be the stem; may you be the bud, and the leaf, and the flower; may you be the fruit, a beautiful ripened fruit. May you be the one who beautifies, may you be the nursing mother of the womb, may you be your own mother's womb and all wombs, the root of all, a fertile vine, oh beloved.

MALE ATTENDANTS: The male attendants open the curtain and bring forth Chaos. The shall lead him to Babalon’s side. After they do this, they should return to their positions.

B: In the style of the first story, his consort answers, “May "There is enough, there is enough" be your blessing and a splendid utterance, and may "There is none" be your abomination. May you be the owner of a house where there is enough, with a beautiful sister, beautiful children! A beautiful storehouse. May you be the male in all men. May you be the son of your god, may you be handsome, may you be praised!

B: May you be one who pleases his city's god, may you be a son who delights his mother, may you be the life-force of your city, may you be an honourable man, good offspring, may you be prosperous! May you own silver there, may you own grain there! Owning silver, may you delight in silver; owning grain, may you delight in grain! May you be valiant and joyous, may you never be blighted! May you be a soother of hearts, who never wearies of words!

C: “As I said unto the Queen of Heaven, Babalon I would go with you to our garden, yea, I would go with you to our orchard; I would go with you even unto our apple tree. There I would plant the sweet honey covered seed. There I would enter into thy garden, into thy beautiful temple.  There, with you, I would weave the Veil of Life upon the Face of the Spirit.

FEMALE ATTENDANTS: The female attendants come to either side of the pair, and join their hands, then push them gently together at the right moment. They should stand with the pair until the Sumerian portion is finished and then resume their position. B: Let them erect for me my flowered bed. Let them spread it for me with herbs like translucent lapis lazuli. For me let them bring in the man of my heart. Let them bring in to me my beautiful love. Let them put his hand in my hand, let them put his heart by my heart. As hand is put to head, the sleep is so pleasant. As heart is pressed to heart, the pleasure is so sweet.

44.šu-ni šu-ĝu-ta de-ĝa!-da-ma-ma-ne
45.ša-ba-ni ša-ab-ĝu-ta de-ĝa-da-ma-ma-ne
46.šu /saĝ\-še /ma\-al-la-na u ku-bi ze-ba an-ga
47.ša-<ab> ša-ba tab-ba-na ḫi-li-bi ku-ku-da an-ga

CHAOS and BABALON together: As hand is put to head, the sleep is so pleasant. As heart is pressed to heart, the pleasure is so sweet.

ATTENDANTS: All go behind the curtain and bring out the elements. The women bring the cakes to the north side of the Deacon, the men bring the wine to the south.

DEACON: consecrates the elements:

D: “This is the Kingship (cakes),

D: “This is the Queenship (wine).”

Deacon hands C and B cookies, they eat as at a wedding cake cutting
Deacon hands C and B wines, same here
DEACON, CHAOS and BABALON together: “To love!”

FEMALE ATTENDANTS: raise cakes

C and B both kiss the tray.
MALE ATTENDANTS: raise wine

C and B both kiss the tray.
DEACON: Remind people to hold onto their Eucharist so that can all can commune together.

ATTENDANTS: Distribute Eucharist. Men should start in the same places they began to pick up the wine, and move 180 degrees around the circle, clockwise. Women same, even though these do not overlap.

ATTENDANTS: Return any leftovers behind the curtain and resume their positions, each with a cup and cake.

ALL: Raise wine and cake, eat, and drink at once.

ALL: “To love!”

The Blessing

D: Behold the faces of your God, the beginning of comfort, whose eyes are the brightness of the heavens which provided you for the government of the earth, and her unspeakable variety, furnishing you with a power of understanding, that ye might dispose all things according to the foresight of Them that sitteth on the Holy Throne, and rose up in the beginning, saying, The earth, let her be governed by her parts, and let there be division in her, that her glory may be always ecstasy.

B: Behold the faces of your sisters, behold the faces of your brothers. So many keen minds, united in purpose, keen eyes; insightful and bold. Power and glory are yours in the now and the ever. Know that I am the seven-fold star that contains the mysteries of the Universe. Seek me in the darkness of night, in the darkness of fertile soil, in the depths of your soul. You are the many and the one. In your dissolution, there will be ecstasy.

ALL: “So mote it be!”

Overhead light extinguished to signal end of ritual. All Exit, leaving Chaos and Babalon in Darkness.

Source Material:

Inspiration:

The Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church: an Examination, by Helena and Tau Apiryon (Frater Sabazius) - http://hermetic.com/sabazius/creed_egc.htm

Transliteration of Sumerian text:

Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literatures: http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/etcsl.cgi?text=c.4.08*#

Ritual context:

Enheduanna, (2000). Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart. Austin TX, University of Texas Press, translated by Meador, Betty De Shong. ISBN 10-292-75242-3

Wolkstein, D. and S.N. Kramer, (1983). Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth. New York, NY, Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-06-014713-X

Thelemic descriptions of both Babalon and Chaos:

Crowley, A.C., V.B. Neuburg and M. Desti, (1998). The Vision and the Voice, with Commentary and Other Papers. Boston MA, Red Wheel/Weiser LLC. ISBN 0-87728-906-9

Much of the Deacon’s adoration of Babalon:

Feist, H. “Orison to Babalon,” unpublished.

The Progeny of Jane Wolfe and Phyllis Seckler (and My Path into the A.'.A.'.)

As we continue this series of posts, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible. I tried to write this post in several different ways, from a historical report with lots of footnotes, to a formal interview, to a FAQ-formatted piece, but nothing really worked. In the end, I decided the best way to present this information was to just tell my story, what I found along the way, and what I've heard and learned since I began.

When the A.’.A.’. finally knocked at my door telling me my time had come to join, I was one of those people who wanted to make sure that I was getting the real deal. If you've read the blog posts over at Head for the Red, you can see that for the last decade or so, I make it my goal to find a complete system as close to the source as possible with as little corruption, divergence, or piled on make-believe. It worked well for me, I traced the KBL back to its pre-Sefer Yetzira origins to my satisfaction, and discovered in the 1st through 3rd centuries the Greek Magical Papyri, the Corpus Hermeticum, and the philosophical and practical roots that made sense of all the information found later in Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy.

You'd think finding the organization created, run, and passed on by Crowley less than a hundred years ago would be a lot easier than finding the foundational documents of the Western Mystery Tradition written almost two thousand years ago.

But you'd be wrong.

After a few weeks, I remembered every negative notion I'd ever had about the Victorian era systems of magical study and practice since I was 16. I'd gotten spoiled by working with the grimoires and Greek Magical Papyri, they were written so long ago, there were only manuscripts and academic studies. There were no personalities, figureheads, no records of the egotistical conflicts that inevitably manifest when two or more are gathered in the name of magick.

I feel sorry for Harper and a couple of my closest friends who witnessed me complain and rant and vent as I found dead end after dead end, one conflicting story after another, and all the rumors and innuendo.

But I'm stubborn. I tracked various groups and their leaders down, both active and defunct.

I started with a good friend I've known for years. He is a member of a claimant group that traces itself back through Ebony Anpu to Grady McMurtry. His claimant group, while still alive and active in at least himself and his direct supervisor, didn't concern itself with whether or not they "really" had documentable claims linking them to Crowley, which mattered to me a lot. He understood, and pointed me in the direction of the major claimant groups currently in existence, and suggested that I should probably take a look at the group led by Dr. David Shoemaker if I was serious about finding something that can track itself back to Crowley.

Following up on his tips and leads, I found myself speaking with the leader of a group that claimed to be providing the teachings of the A.’.A.’.. At some point, this group had started calling its local groups "Clerk Houses," a reference to a verse in the Book of the Law, and had diverged in several other ways from the original formula of the A.’.A.’.. This group is led by a person of character who has a long and documented history of interesting relations with the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), and various members of the A.’.A.’.. This group also traced itself back through Grady McMurtry. I found it is no longer taking on new members, and the conversations I had with the leader about various topics led to more questions and concerns than answers, so I took notes and moved along to the next lead.

I also looked into another claimant group, descended from J. F. C. Fuller. While members of that organization continue their personal Work, they make no claim to "legitimacy" that met the standards I'd set for myself, though all the members I've interacted with have been awesome people I respect and admire.

I found a few other groups that were claiming to be A.’.A.’. as I continued my research, but they really aren't worth mentioning. Most have a small online presence, are very vocal in their own Facebook groups, but ultimately don’t add up to much more than empty claims on the internet, and a lot of regurgitation of new age tropes from the 1980s. For example, one group said they had established connections with the Secret Chiefs on their own, I think by doing Liber Resh daily. And if it's on the internet, it has to be true, right?

Well... I wasn't convinced.

So that left three options that seemed to have some kind of weight behind them.

The first was, of course, the A.’.A.’. group that is currently advertised by and publicly affiliated with the O.T.O.. Frater Sabazius made it very clear that the O.T.O. can only work with one administrative A.’.A.’. claimant group at a time, while also making it clear that it's not within the power of the O.T.O. to confer any kind of validity or authenticity to any of the claimant groups. The claimant group that is currently the partner of the O.T.O. is led by J. Daniel Gunther. Being an O.T.O. initiate, it was important to me to look into this group's history and practices. I really prefer to have all my eggs in one ecumenical basket, as it were.

I had assumed that Gunther's group, having been recognized by the O.T.O. as a partner tradition in the spread of Thelema and the Law which is for all, was led by someone involved in all three branches of Thelema as they operate in the current material manifestations of things: the A.’.A.’., the O.T.O., and the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (E.G.C.). It appears that Gunther is not, in fact, a dues-current member of the O.T.O., and has no affiliation with the E.G.C.

That really matters to me.

But I wanted to give them a fair shake, so I tried to keep an open mind and kept exploring. I'd heard all kinds of opinions about the various claimant groups by this time, and while I appreciated the opinions of my friends, I understand the nature of politics in organizations, and I really wanted to read something firsthand from the sources.

A few of my friends recommended that I read In the Center of the Fire, by James Wasserman. He had studied under Motta, and was in the A.’.A.’. claimant group led by Gunther. He'd written up his experiences around the time of the formation of the O.T.O., and spoke a lot about his interactions with the people that were the major players of the times when he started getting into the O.T.O. and A.’.A.’. aspects of Thelema. He'd met and worked with Motta, he'd met with Soror Meral and Grady McMurtry. He was present at the trials that ended up establishing the validity of the O.T.O., and he had written up his experiences with these people and he published it.

So I bought his book, and I read it, and in it he clearly states that all the founding members of the A.’.A.’. administration currently partnered with the O.T.O. had either been expelled by Motta before his death, or had, according to Motta, left the A.’.A.’. on their own. Furthermore, it was notable that Soror Meral had been administering A.’.A.’. continuously for decades before the formulation of the governing “Triad” of the Gunther-led group.

This was a nail in the coffin for me, as far as this group was concerned.

This left me with two options, the group led by James Eshelman, and David Shoemaker's group.

By this time, I had the chance to read some of the things that Eshelman had published, and I personally found his "corrections" and expansions to 777 to be less than useful. Also, as I mentioned earlier, it was important to me that I join a group that was led by someone in good standing in the O.T.O.. As with Gunther, that turned out not to be the case  with Eshelman.

So I’d found several groups claiming to be “the” A.’.A.’., or who were being referenced as being an approach to the A.’.A.’., but every road had been a bust. Frankly, I was about done with the A.’.A.’. at this point. It was the Golden Dawn all over again, I thought. Schism, in-fighting, and expulsions at best, hollow claims on the internet at the worst.

So I figured, what the heck, everyone keeps telling me Shoemaker's the real deal, I'll give it one more shot.

I went into it with expectations that had been shaped by my experiences, so in other words, they were decidedly low.

I can only imagine how my early correspondences with David Shoemaker must have come across. I was tired and cranky from the experiences I'd had, and I just wanted to follow up on the Wasserman claims that Meral was really 5=6. I suspect I might have come across as a little, uhm, rude.

I honestly expected to discover in no time that she had been expelled, or hadn't actually been in the Order, or that she was a practitioner of Spiritism who channeled the Secret Chiefs through her Ouija board at parties after she'd had enough brandy.

Instead, he sent me a document that showed the correspondence between Karl Germer and Jane Wolfe (Soror Estai), and later with Soror Meral herself when he had taken over as her superior in the A.’.A.’.. It was excerpts, but he pointed me to where the full text and context had been published for reference.

I hopped on these books, and ate them up. It was a dream come true. Laid out in letter after letter were the things I had been looking for, in the kind of detail that you just can't make up.

Soror Meral was the student of Jane Wolfe, who was at Cefalu with Aleister Crowley. One of the things Shoemaker had made available publicly was her journal entries from her time at Cefalu. I had the journal in no time, and I read about her experiences, I saw her work, I saw her journal entries, and in the margins in Crowley's own handwritten admonishments, his personal advice, and his recognition of her accomplishments as she proceeded through the exercises he laid out for her. I saw her history through her own eyes, and tracked down more correspondence from the time. I saw that Crowley leaned heavily on Jane Wolfe, recognized her value (sometimes) and relied on her efforts in every way to keep Agape Lodge running the way he wanted it to be run.

I kept waiting to find the letter that expelled Jane Wolfe, or Phyllis Seckler. Almost all the women he worked with quit, or their relationships ended poorly. Many of the men too. He was a notoriously difficult person.

But that letter never came. He maintained his relationships and correspondence with Jane and Phyllis throughout his life. When I reached the correspondence from the time he died, I read about how Germer was saddled with being the head of both the A.’.A.’. and O.T.O., and how he handled himself in this new role. I saw the letters exchanged between Wolfe and Germer, and later between Seckler and Germer, between superior and student, letters of encouragement and instruction, the exchange of wisdom and of insight.

This stuff is all published, and is publicly available. Everyone interested in the historic account of what was going on between the Thelemites of that time should take a look at the bibliography at the end of this post, and add these books to your library so you can see the full story for yourself.

The preponderance of evidence was, for me, undeniable:

The Germer/Wolfe/Seckler claimant group is the only claimant group with an unbroken initiatory and administrative link extending all the way back to Crowley at Cefalu. The group never stopped initiating people, never stopped the grand experiment Crowley had begun, never disbanded, resigned, or gave up. They have simply endured, and did the Work of expressing the Law of Thelema into the world this whole time.

Not only that, but it became obvious to me that when Grady and Phyllis were working together to rejuvenate the O.T.O. after its long hiatus, there was an existing partnership and natural overlap between the O.T.O. and the A.’.A.’. administration that reflected exactly what I understood Crowley had wanted from the beginning: those people interested in the A.’.A.’. curriculum were studying it as designed, and at the same time serving in their local O.T.O. and EGC bodies, quietly and without fanfare. To this day that interpenetration of the A.’.A.’. within the O.T.O. continues. The more people I've met since my initial research into this subject and my entry into the system, the more I've found that we are everywhere, across the world, at every level of service stretching from the degrees of Minerval to Bishop, and beyond.

I was both convinced... and totally relieved. The richness of the materials, the unadulterated presentation of what was going on - warts and all - in everything I read made it clear that this wasn't some sugar-coated fantasy reinterpretation of events. Crowley could be a real jerk. Germer got angry, just like everyone else. Jane went through some horrifying personal experiences. Phyllis endured social prejudices and things we wouldn’t put up with at lodge today, and had a strong set of opinions that she didn't hesitate to express as she saw fit.

These were real people doing the real Work, and they faced the same kinds of struggles we face today. The historical research I had seen, and the work I'd done myself was fleshed out in details that made the people more than just characters in a story or in a Wikipedia article. Things I went through in my own work were reflected in the conversations between mentors and students, and in the journals of my predecessors in clear black and white, going all the way back to the source. I wished I'd had that kind of feedback as I was stumbling my way through things.

So it was an easy decision for me to join the Shoemaker claimant group. I didn't think it would matter much to anyone else, so I signed up, got the list of reading materials, and when it was time, I began the Student curriculum. It's been great. I've had confirmation of things I thought I'd understood, which made me feel good, and I've come to realize that I had totally missed some really obvious things along the way, and that's proven to be even better. My experiences doing the Work of the grades has been awesome, and I have no qualms encouraging anyone feeling like they are hearing the knock of the Order at their door to join with me in our group, it's got it going on.

And that's basically my story, and how I ended up where I'm at with this whole A.’.A.’. business.

While I made the choice that seemed best to me, I also want to make sure I mention that along the way I've spoken to a lot of members of different claimant groups. It is clear to anyone who interacts with them that a lot of important and thoughtful work is being done by initiates in the various claimant groups.

Please, refer to the Bibliography below to research things for yourself. It's all there in black and white. I'd leave it there, but...

But...

There's always a "but" in these things.

This "but" is about what happened to me as I went along, and continued to advance through the Man of Earth triad of the O.T.O.. I started to notice a trend. Whenever I would talk about joining the A.’.A.’. publicly, I got a lot of feedback.

Also, when I announced to my old blog audience that I'd joined the A.’.A.’. in a post with a link to onestarinsight.org, within my circles of friends and acquaintances in the O.T.O. I was asked some interesting questions by some people. Others came out and directly challenged my choices. It didn't take long to find that a lot of people had a lot of misinformation and had formed some very adamant opinions as a result.

And, as those who know me are aware, this is exactly the kind of thing that I think I was born to do: set the record straight about how things actually work in a way that everyone can understand, with references for further research and cited sources that should be researched so you come to your own conclusions.

So going forward, I'm envisioning the following posts to present the questions, rumors, and allegations I've heard, and the answers, truth, and documented rebuttals to these things respectively.

First, I think the history of the A.’.A.’. that led from Cefalu to Sacramento, the Crowley-Wolfe-Seckler/Germer-Wolfe-Seckler/Germer-Seckler-Shoemaker history of succession is really important to understand. It's a simple core narrative that makes sense when you look at it. There's no questionable practices, challenges, or blatantly false claims to be found in the story, and that alone speaks volumes. Without attacking anyone else, it simply presents the story of the A.’.A.’., its members, its leadership over the years, and provides the foundation necessary to understand where we are today.

The role of Motta in this history can't be ignored, since his personal history, involvement in the A.’.A.’., and subsequent claims continue to influence some public opinions today. I'll at least reference some simple and straight-forward published correspondence that addresses his role in this process according to Germer, and later in his life, James Wasserman.

Once the actual history is laid out, the next thing I'd like to address are the basic pieces of misinformation I've come across since I've started this process. I picture this post as a simple "This is what I've heard, but this is the truth" list of what people say verses the truth. I'll stick to documented things, because that's the easiest way to address this stuff.

My hope is to put a lot of these rumors and accusations to bed once and for all. There's a lot of confusion around how the A.’.A.’. claimant group Phyllis led worked in practice, and the roles of the International College of Thelema and the Temple of the Silver Star. I heard a lot of people use the word "recensions" in reference to things Seckler had done, and a lot of blatant lies about theft of library materials, allegations of profiting off the teachings of the A.’.A.’., and suggestions that this claimant group that goes directly back to Crowley without interruption is somehow a newcomer, when it's never stopped.

And then finally, I'd like to wrap up this series of posts with an opinion-editorial piece addressing the relationship between the O.T.O. and the A.’.A.’., some recent rhetoric, and how I'd personally like to see things shake out over the rest of my lifetime.

Bibliography:

Seckler, P. (2003). Jane Wolfe: Her Life with Aleister Crowley Part 1 (Red Flame Journal #10). Berkely: Red Flame Productions.
Seckler, P. (2003). Jane Wolfe: Her Life with Aleister Crowley Part 2 (Red Flame Journal #11). Berkeley: Red Flame Productions.
Seckler, P. (2010). The Thoth Tarot, Astrology, and Other Selected Writings. Sacramento: Teitan Press.
Seckler, P. (2012). The Kabbalah, Magick, and Thelema: Selected Writings Volume II. Sacramento: Teitan Press.
Wasserman, J. (2012). In the Center of the Fire. Lake Worth, FL: Ibis Press.